PhD position: aboveground-belowground linkages in beech masting dynamics - NIOO-KNAW - Wageningen

Every day, hidden ecological processes unfold right below our feet. Are you excited about belowground ecology and interested in combining long-term ecological data, soil ecology, fieldwork, and predictive modelling to understand how forests respond to global change? We are looking for a PhD candidate to investigate how belowground processes contribute and respond to mast seeding dynamics in European beech (Fagus sylvatica).

The production of beech seeds has high inter-annual variability, resulting in “boom” years with high total seed counts (masting) and “bust” years in which very few seeds are produced. These fluctuations have cascading consequences for whole forest food webs, as many animals depend on beech seeds as a key resource. While the climatic drivers of masting are relatively well understood, the role of belowground processes (soil properties, nutrient cycling, soil biota) in shaping resource accumulation and mast seeding remain underexposed. At the same time, masting patterns in many trees, including European beech, are shifting in response to climate change, with potentially major consequences for forest ecosystem functioning above and below ground.

In this interdisciplinary project, you will investigate how belowground processes both shape and respond to masting dynamics. You will combine long-term ecological monitoring with soil ecology and predictive modelling approaches to “open the belowground black box” underlying masting. During the PhD, you will develop skills in ecological field work, experimental design, soil ecology, statistical analysis and predictive ecology, statistical programming (in R), working with long-term data, scientific writing and publishing, and interdisciplinary collaboration.

Specifically, you will:

1. Assess spatially explicit, among-individual variation using a 50-year time series of beech seed production at a long-term site in the Netherlands;
2. Collect extensive soil samples for biological and physicochemical characterization, and use sensors to monitor spatiotemporal variation in abiotic conditions; and
3. Conduct controlled experiments with beech litter to understand how mast-driven variation in litter quality influences belowground processes.

Postdoc: Above-belowground interactions in grasslands under global change - NIOO-KNAW - Wageningen

Grasslands are under increased pressure of global changes, with nutrient enrichment and changes in vertebrate grazer communities being among the most prominent. Although impacts of global changes on plant communities have been well documented, it is much less well understood how they affect soil community composition and functioning. We now have the unique opportunity to utilise a long-term experiment at the Veluwe (the Netherlands), which is part of the global Nutrient Network (www.nutnet.org), to study impacts of nutrient addition and grazing on plant and soil communities.

With your expertise in plant or soil ecology you will collect field samples and analyse long-term data sets to understand plant and soil community responses to global changes. You will make current datasets FAIR, analyse these data from new angles and write scientific publications. In addition, you will contribute to the development of a long-term strategy for using our experimental facility and help to develop project proposals for funding future work. You will present your research at conferences and scientific meetings.

VoxDoc Student-Assistent - HuC

Wij zoeken twee student-assistenten voor 1 a 2 dagen per week op basis van een 38-urige werkweek voor de duur van 6-12 maanden afhankelijk van je wekelijkse arbeidsduur.

Je gaat werken aan het NWO-project Voicing the Document, waarin we bestaande grote open weights AI machine learning modellen beter bruikbaar willen maken voor de analyse van historische documenten. Denk aan een soort van ChatGPT die daadwerkelijk verstand heeft van de Carolingische miniscuul en tabellen in historische vorm kan interpreteren. Het bouwt voor op de handschriftherkenning van Loghi en we werken samen met het Nationaal Archief en Koninklijke bibliotheek.

Je gaat zelfstandig kijken of de computer vragen over de documenten goed of fout beantwoord en materiaal voorbereiden zodat het AI-model kan leren omgaan met het historische materiaal.

Research Technician MALDI-TOF - Westerdijk Fungal Biodiversity Institute - Utrecht

The Westerdijk Institute is seeking a full-time Research Technician to support a European-funded research project in the Molecular Medical Mycology laboratory. The project focuses on building a MALDI-TOF reference spectra library for filamentous fungi and yeasts and on exploring its application in detecting antifungal resistance and identifying outbreak-associated strains.

What you will be doing

• Culturing fungal and yeast strains.
• Extracting proteins and generating MALDI-TOF spectra and MSPs.
• Expanding and curating fungal spectral databases.
• Performing DNA extraction and barcode sequencing.
• Conducting species verification through sequence analysis.

Maintaining accurate data records and adhering to certified protocols.

PhD position: Genetic basis of yield stability in barley under drought - NIOO-KNAW - Wageningen

In a collaborative project between the Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO-KNAW) and Wageningen University & Research (WUR), together we are looking for two enthusiastic PhD candidates to investigate how wild barley, the wild relative of cultivated barley, can maintain stable yield across both optimal and drought conditions. The projects focus on (PhD2) above-ground growth and yield responses to water limitation (NIOO-KNAW/WUR) and (PhD1) below-ground development (WUR).

Using a high-throughput root phenotyping facility and a diverse panel of wild barley accessions, you will study how root architecture and shoot traits influence plant performance under different water conditions. By combining phenotyping with genetic approaches such as GWAS and candidate gene analysis, the project aims to identify what makes the wild progenitor of barley resilient: what traits and alleles support stable yield across environments? Ultimately, this research will contribute to the development of barley varieties that perform reliably under both optimal and water-limited conditions - true “allrounder” crops for future climates.

PhD2:

• Together with other project members, you will design and execute controlled-environment experiments, including large greenhouse experiments to collect whole-plant measurements, phenotyping of shoot growth, physiology, and yield-related traits in barley diversity panels under different water regimes, and perform GWAS analyses to identify loci associated with yield stability across environments.
• The project will be carried out jointly at NIOO-KNAW and the Laboratory of Molecular Biology at Wageningen University, and you will divide your time between both institutes while being employed by NIOO.
• You will conduct mutant analysis, generating CRISPR/Cas mutants and transformation approaches to identify developmental genetic regulators.
• You will analyze data and integrate multi-modal datasets using quantitative/statistical approaches. This includes linking variation in shoot phenotypes to root traits, to evaluate the role of root plasticity in yield stability.
• You will coordinate collaboration by managing cross-team experiments.
• You will write and publish your research in leading scientific journals and communicate your findings through your PhD thesis and via broader societal outreach.

PhD1 (WUR) go to: https://www.wur.nl/en/vacancy/phd-position-genetic-basis-yield-stability-barley-under-drought